For several seconds, I couldn’t hear Mrs. Zhou anymore.

There was only one sentence repeating inside my head.

“Don’t let Serena find out.”

Nathan had said Serena’s name when we were twelve.

Years before Serena Song entered our lives.

I slowly looked at Mrs. Zhou.

“What happened during that kidnapping?”

Her fingers tightened around mine.

“You remembered?”

“Answer me.”

She remained silent.

That silence frightened me more than any answer could have.

Finally, she whispered:

“Nathan remembered too.”

My breath stopped.

“What?”

Mrs. Zhou stood and walked toward the window.

“When Nathan was rescued, he was unconscious for three days. When he woke up, he started saying strange things.”

“What things?”

“That he knew people he had never met.”

She turned toward me.

“He knew Serena Song.”

Cold spread through my body.

“He described her name, her appearance, even the profession she would eventually choose.”

I stared at her.

Impossible.

Unless…

“Nathan was reborn too?”

Mrs. Zhou closed her eyes.

“Yes.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Suddenly, every certainty I had carried into this second life cracked.

“When?”

“During the kidnapping.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“He woke up remembering another life.”

“What life?”

Mrs. Zhou looked directly at me.

“The same one you remember.”

I couldn’t speak.

Nathan remembered our marriage.

My decades of waiting.

His death.

Serena.

Everything.

Then why?

Why had he repeated it?

Why had he still chosen Serena?

Why had he kissed her?

Why had he allowed me to spend another life believing I meant nothing?

My hand moved protectively over my stomach.

“If he remembered everything, then he’s worse than I thought.”

Mrs. Zhou immediately shook her head.

“You still don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

“He remembered dying.”

“So did I.”

“No, Lily.”

Her voice trembled.

“He remembered what happened after he died.”

I froze.

Mrs. Zhou opened her handbag and removed an old envelope.

Inside was a photograph.

Nathan.

Young.

Perhaps seventeen.

Standing beside a military doctor.

On the back was a handwritten date.

Years before our marriage.

“What is this?”

“After the kidnapping, Nathan began having recurring memories. Your father and my husband thought it was trauma.”

She swallowed.

“But Nathan predicted things.”

“What things?”

“Accidents. Promotions. Deaths. Operations that hadn’t happened yet.”

My fingers went cold.

“He knew the future.”

“Pieces of it.”

“And Serena?”

Mrs. Zhou hesitated.

“According to Nathan, Serena became involved in something much bigger than an affair.”

I remembered the album.

True Love.

Every photograph.

Every page dedicated to Serena.

My stomach twisted.

“Don’t defend him.”

“I’m not.”

Mrs. Zhou’s eyes reddened.

“I begged him to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

She looked at my belly.

“That in his first life, you didn’t survive long after he died.”

My heartbeat stumbled.

“What?”

“He believed your death was connected to his.”

I couldn’t breathe.

In my memories, everything after Nathan’s funeral was blurred.

The lawyer.

The will.

The album.

Rain outside the window.

Then darkness.

Then I woke in this life.

I had always assumed grief had swallowed the final memories.

Mrs. Zhou continued.

“Nathan believed someone was watching you.”

“Who?”

“He never proved it.”

“Serena?”

“I don’t know.”

That answer sounded genuine.

I lowered my eyes to the photograph.

“Then why leave everything to Serena?”

Mrs. Zhou whispered:

“Because the assets weren’t a gift.”

I looked up.

“What?”

“The will required Serena to personally claim them.”

My mind raced.

“Why?”

“To force her into the open.”

Suddenly, the will looked different.

Not romantic.

A trap.

But one thing remained.

“The album.”

Mrs. Zhou went silent.

My voice hardened.

“He called it True Love.”

“I know.”

“There wasn’t one picture of me.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t tell me it meant nothing.”

She didn’t.

Instead she reached into her bag again.

This time she removed a small key.

“Nathan told me that if you ever remembered the kidnapping, I should give you this.”

I stared at it.

“What does it open?”

“A locker at the military archive.”

“What’s inside?”

“I don’t know.”

I took the key.

Engraved into its surface were four numbers.

The fifteenth of July.

Our ridiculous monthly date.

My throat tightened.

That evening, I went alone.

The archive officer recognized the authorization immediately.

Locker 0715 contained no weapons.

No classified documents.

Only a wooden box.

Inside were dozens of letters.

Every envelope had my name.

Lily.

My hands trembled as I opened the first.

It had been written the year Nathan entered military academy.

The second during his first deployment.

The third before our wedding.

None had been sent.

I didn’t read every word.

I didn’t need to.

One line from the final letter was enough.

“If I keep her close, the same future may find her again.”

I sat completely still.

Underneath the letters was another album.

My heart began pounding.

The cover was plain.

I opened it.

First page.

Me at sixteen, asleep beneath a tree.

Second.

Me graduating.

Third.

Me laughing beside Mrs. Zhou.

Fourth.

Our wedding.

Page after page.

Me.

Only me.

At the back was a photograph of Nathan standing outside our home while I watered flowers.

On the reverse, he had written:

“The life I wanted but was afraid to keep.”

My eyes burned.

I hated him at that moment.

Perhaps more than before.

Because if he had loved me, he had turned that love into another kind of cruelty.

He had decided everything alone.

He had never trusted me with the truth.

Then I found a sealed military report beneath the album.

One name had been circled.

SERENA SONG.

Below it:

SUBJECT OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTEREST.

My hands froze.

Footsteps suddenly sounded behind me.

I turned.

Nathan stood in the doorway.

He looked thinner than I remembered.

Exhausted.

For once, there was no military calm in his face.

His eyes went directly to the open album.

“You weren’t supposed to find that yet.”

I stood.

“You remember.”

He said nothing.

“You remember our first life.”

“Yes.”

The answer shattered the final barrier between us.

I crossed the room and slapped him.

Nathan didn’t move.

“That was for letting me believe I wasted my entire life loving someone who felt nothing.”

“I know.”

“You knew I would ask for a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“You knew about the photograph with Serena?”

“Yes.”

My voice broke.

“Then why did you kiss her?”

His expression changed.

“I didn’t.”

I stared at him.

“I saw the photograph.”

“You saw what someone wanted photographed.”

Nathan stepped forward.

“Serena approached me because she believed I had finally taken the bait.”

“What bait?”

Before he could answer, an alarm suddenly sounded through the archive.

Nathan’s entire posture changed.

He grabbed my wrist.

“We need to leave.”

“What happened?”

His phone vibrated.

He looked at the message.

All color disappeared from his face.

“Nathan?”

He turned the screen toward me.

It was a security image from outside my house.

Serena stood at my front door.

Beside her were two unfamiliar men.

And one of them carried a medical case.

My hand instinctively covered my belly.

Nathan looked at me.

“In my first life, this happened three months later.”

“What happened?”

His voice became frighteningly quiet.

“You lost the baby.”

I stopped breathing.

Nathan grabbed his coat.

“That was the moment I realized your death wasn’t caused by grief.”

He opened the door.

“It started with our child.”

I stared at him.

Then another message arrived.

This time from my home security system.

FRONT DOOR OPENED.

But nobody was supposed to be home.

Nathan looked at the screen.

Then at me.

And for the first time since I had been reborn, I understood why he had spent two lifetimes trying to keep Serena Song close.

He hadn’t been choosing her.

He had been waiting for her to make the same mistake twice.